betrayed him with asinine jokes. To change the subject he nodded at the TV. “Does so much always happen in one day around here?”
“Oh, yeah.” Trixie nodded. “A day in New York is like six months anywhere else. Did you just get here?”
“I came in on the red-eye last night,” the vampire replied. “But I got to sleep all day.”
“Well, once you get over your poison birch, you’re gonna havta do better than that.”
Although the vampire had been visiting Manhattan ever since 1614, when it was a fur-trading post called New Amsterdam, he went with her lead. “What do you mean?”
Trixie leaned back and examined her work. “If you wanna take New York by storm, you gotta go day and night, twenty-four-seven.” Her customer’s skin was now smooth but still showed a hint of streaking. She squirted a dollop of antiaging cream in her palm.
As Trixie applied the cream to his face, the vampire closed his eyes and pondered her advice. In his long past, working nights had provided more than enough time to exercise his brand of death and devastation. But now, given the heap of revenge, terror, and destruction he had planned for certain mortals and immortals, he wondered if it wastime to borrow a page from the Leaguer manual and get over his restricting and irrational fear of sunlight.
Yes
, he told himself,
when in Rome, do as the Romans
.
“All right,” Trixie said. “Anything else I can do fer ya? Manicure? Pedicure?” She fluffed his long, curly locks. “Give your hair a little trim and straighten?”
Whatever pleasure lingered from the face massage he had just received evaporated with the reminder that his once straight hair had mysteriously gone curly. “All I need are some directions.”
“Where to?” she obliged.
“Leaguer Academy Two.”
She stepped back. “Are you tellin’ me I just exfoliated a vampire?”
He glanced down at the skin shavings on his spa robe. “Do vampires have problems like this?”
Trixie laughed with relief. “Of course not.”
Leaguer Academy II sat on high bluffs rising above the Hudson. The manicured grounds rolled down to the river, sparkling in the light of a full moon.
Inside the academy, an instructor was sleeping soundly in her quarters, when she woke with a gasp. A darting scan of the shadows revealed nothing, but she sensed someone. “Who’s there?” she asked breathlessly.
A calm voice came from darkness. “I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Varkos.” The figure stepped into the moonlight piercing the window. His copper skin looked black in the dim light. “I’m in need of your expertise.”
The Leaguer sat up, her forehead contracted with suspicion. “What kind of expertise?”
“I understand you teach vampires how to overcome—how do you Leaguers call it?—solar phobia.”
“That’s right.”
“I need a crash course.”
The Leaguer swung out of bed. “Look, Varkos—if that’s really your name—you need to do like every Loner who comes in from the dark. You need to enroll in the academy and take all the training that transitions Loners to Leaguers.”
He gestured regretfully. “I don’t have time for that.”
“You’re a vampire, you have oodles of time.”
Perhaps it was his impatience, or his ears being assaulted by “oodles”—ears that had heard the premiere of
Hamlet
at the Globe—whatever; Varkos had heard enough. He flipped up a hand and put the instructor in a thrall. He had asked nicely, now it was time for his tutor to tute.
Several hours later, Varkos stood on a bluff overlooking the river. His teacher, Beth, stood behind him with a glazed expression. Sometimes teachers just go through the motions of instruction, like they’re phoning it in. Beth, still in a deep thrall, had done just that as she had run Varkos through the gauntlet of overcoming solar phobia.
The moment of truth in her crash course was close at hand: the moment the sun peeked over the ridge on the east side of the river. Varkos spread
“Oh, yeah.” Trixie nodded. “A day in New York is like six months anywhere else. Did you just get here?”
“I came in on the red-eye last night,” the vampire replied. “But I got to sleep all day.”
“Well, once you get over your poison birch, you’re gonna havta do better than that.”
Although the vampire had been visiting Manhattan ever since 1614, when it was a fur-trading post called New Amsterdam, he went with her lead. “What do you mean?”
Trixie leaned back and examined her work. “If you wanna take New York by storm, you gotta go day and night, twenty-four-seven.” Her customer’s skin was now smooth but still showed a hint of streaking. She squirted a dollop of antiaging cream in her palm.
As Trixie applied the cream to his face, the vampire closed his eyes and pondered her advice. In his long past, working nights had provided more than enough time to exercise his brand of death and devastation. But now, given the heap of revenge, terror, and destruction he had planned for certain mortals and immortals, he wondered if it wastime to borrow a page from the Leaguer manual and get over his restricting and irrational fear of sunlight.
Yes
, he told himself,
when in Rome, do as the Romans
.
“All right,” Trixie said. “Anything else I can do fer ya? Manicure? Pedicure?” She fluffed his long, curly locks. “Give your hair a little trim and straighten?”
Whatever pleasure lingered from the face massage he had just received evaporated with the reminder that his once straight hair had mysteriously gone curly. “All I need are some directions.”
“Where to?” she obliged.
“Leaguer Academy Two.”
She stepped back. “Are you tellin’ me I just exfoliated a vampire?”
He glanced down at the skin shavings on his spa robe. “Do vampires have problems like this?”
Trixie laughed with relief. “Of course not.”
Leaguer Academy II sat on high bluffs rising above the Hudson. The manicured grounds rolled down to the river, sparkling in the light of a full moon.
Inside the academy, an instructor was sleeping soundly in her quarters, when she woke with a gasp. A darting scan of the shadows revealed nothing, but she sensed someone. “Who’s there?” she asked breathlessly.
A calm voice came from darkness. “I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Varkos.” The figure stepped into the moonlight piercing the window. His copper skin looked black in the dim light. “I’m in need of your expertise.”
The Leaguer sat up, her forehead contracted with suspicion. “What kind of expertise?”
“I understand you teach vampires how to overcome—how do you Leaguers call it?—solar phobia.”
“That’s right.”
“I need a crash course.”
The Leaguer swung out of bed. “Look, Varkos—if that’s really your name—you need to do like every Loner who comes in from the dark. You need to enroll in the academy and take all the training that transitions Loners to Leaguers.”
He gestured regretfully. “I don’t have time for that.”
“You’re a vampire, you have oodles of time.”
Perhaps it was his impatience, or his ears being assaulted by “oodles”—ears that had heard the premiere of
Hamlet
at the Globe—whatever; Varkos had heard enough. He flipped up a hand and put the instructor in a thrall. He had asked nicely, now it was time for his tutor to tute.
Several hours later, Varkos stood on a bluff overlooking the river. His teacher, Beth, stood behind him with a glazed expression. Sometimes teachers just go through the motions of instruction, like they’re phoning it in. Beth, still in a deep thrall, had done just that as she had run Varkos through the gauntlet of overcoming solar phobia.
The moment of truth in her crash course was close at hand: the moment the sun peeked over the ridge on the east side of the river. Varkos spread
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